When I Say It

 
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Love is (I hope) obviously more than a feeling, but it’s also not just an exercise of the will. What is it then? Both? More than both? When I say it, I don’t want someone to hear “You are my responsibility” or “You are my passing fancy.” We use the word those ways sometimes.

Why does this poem work?* I guess because I want my wife to know that all these things are true of what I feel for her: interest, desire, obligation, contrition, “love is patient, love is kind,” and so on. But when I say it, I want to mean something more than any one of those things, and perhaps more than all of them. I don’t want “love” to be a throwaway word that I can use for whatever purpose; I want it to tell her that I choose her will serve her and will do all I can, God willing, not to stop.

I wrote this as homework for a marriage Bible study Katy and I did with our church. What was the Bible study called? I don’t remember. Not The Love Dare though. The homework was to write a note or a poem. So here it is. Ta-da!

(But I didn’t just write it because I had to…)

 

* I know it works because Katy told me it made her cry.

 
 
 
 

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